A group of ravens is called an unkindness.
A group of rhinos is a crash.
A group of jellyfish is a smack.
A group of cobras is a quiver.
A group of crocodiles is a float.
A group of eagles is a convocation.
A group of foxes is a skulk or a leash.
A group of goldfish is a troubling.
A group of nightingales is a watch.
A group of starlings is a murmur.
A group of trout is a hover.
A group of woodpeckers is a descent.
A group of storks is a muster.
I want to name groups of things! My quick try, based on things I see around me right this second: A group of desks is an undertaking. A group of photos is a benediction. A group of books is a posturing. A group of telephones is a shout. (Try it! It's fun!)
Posted on: Thursday, January 6, 2011
Reverb 10: Moment
Prompt: Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).
I touch down in a ruined city that won't die, vivid colors poaching the gray and sad, flood washed streets. Houses vie for revitalization, identical twins of houses, one paint-chipped and sagging, the other freshly washed, painted, standing tall. The smell is musty, dirty and insistent, like sprouts pushing up in dry gravel, tiny plants blooming in cracked sidewalks. Everything is dirty and bright all at once, the energy of a city bringing everything to vivid light.
I step into a crowded old bookstore and sift through old postcards, eat seafood in restaurants settled into crags in alleys, walk the riverfront, dust powdered sugar from my fingers at the famous cafe up the street from the hotel. Oh, this sweet fried dough, nestled honey brown in mounds of soft white sugar, the crinkle of the plain white bag as I sift my fingers to the beignet.
Music burgeons from underneath a white tent on a street corner. Crisp, strident tones of jazz beat into the heat. At the farmer's market, a man tries to sell me a snake ring. Later I walk through a cemetery, roam the centuries-old tombs, note the Xs marked on the voodoo queen's grave.
The city swells and deflates, a strange inhalation and exhalation of movement, and I am so much a part of it, particles of the flood in my lungs, and out again, and in, and out, and the city lets me take the tiniest bit, even though it doesn't belong to me.
:::
Touching back down in Dallas after a long trip away, I am beyond thrilled to throw my arms out and accept my beautiful daughters into them. Their hair so soft against my cheeks; their grips so tight, so fierce. I didn't realize how much I missed them until I got back, and I feel the slow vise encircling my ribs, ever tightening while I was away, let go all at once, and I am flooded with love and intense gratitude for these perfectly beautiful, wonderful daughters of mine.
I touch down in a ruined city that won't die, vivid colors poaching the gray and sad, flood washed streets. Houses vie for revitalization, identical twins of houses, one paint-chipped and sagging, the other freshly washed, painted, standing tall. The smell is musty, dirty and insistent, like sprouts pushing up in dry gravel, tiny plants blooming in cracked sidewalks. Everything is dirty and bright all at once, the energy of a city bringing everything to vivid light.
I step into a crowded old bookstore and sift through old postcards, eat seafood in restaurants settled into crags in alleys, walk the riverfront, dust powdered sugar from my fingers at the famous cafe up the street from the hotel. Oh, this sweet fried dough, nestled honey brown in mounds of soft white sugar, the crinkle of the plain white bag as I sift my fingers to the beignet.
Music burgeons from underneath a white tent on a street corner. Crisp, strident tones of jazz beat into the heat. At the farmer's market, a man tries to sell me a snake ring. Later I walk through a cemetery, roam the centuries-old tombs, note the Xs marked on the voodoo queen's grave.
The city swells and deflates, a strange inhalation and exhalation of movement, and I am so much a part of it, particles of the flood in my lungs, and out again, and in, and out, and the city lets me take the tiniest bit, even though it doesn't belong to me.
:::
Touching back down in Dallas after a long trip away, I am beyond thrilled to throw my arms out and accept my beautiful daughters into them. Their hair so soft against my cheeks; their grips so tight, so fierce. I didn't realize how much I missed them until I got back, and I feel the slow vise encircling my ribs, ever tightening while I was away, let go all at once, and I am flooded with love and intense gratitude for these perfectly beautiful, wonderful daughters of mine.
Good madness.
I like Neil Gaiman's benediction for a new year:
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
(From here.)
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
(From here.)
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